Abstract
How effective are governmental incentives to achieve widespread vaccination coverage so as to prevent epidemic outbreak? The answer largely depends on the complex interplay among the type of incentive, individual behavioral responses, and the intrinsic epidemic dynamics. By incorporating evolutionary games into epidemic dynamics, we investigate the effects of two types of incentives strategies: partial-subsidy policy in which certain fraction of the cost of vaccination is offset, and free-subsidy policy in which donees are randomly selected and vaccinated at no cost. Through mean-field analysis and computations, we find that, under the partial-subsidy policy, the vaccination coverage depends monotonically on the sensitivity of individuals to payoff difference, but the dependence is non-monotonous for the free-subsidy policy. Due to the role models of the donees for relatively irrational individuals and the unchanged strategies of the donees
for rational individuals, the free-subsidy policy can in general lead to higher vaccination coverage. Our findings indicate that any disease-control policy should be exercised with extreme care: its success depends on the complex interplay among the intrinsic mathematical rules of epidemic spreading, governmental
policies, and behavioral responses of individuals.
for rational individuals, the free-subsidy policy can in general lead to higher vaccination coverage. Our findings indicate that any disease-control policy should be exercised with extreme care: its success depends on the complex interplay among the intrinsic mathematical rules of epidemic spreading, governmental
policies, and behavioral responses of individuals.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 5666 |
| Journal | Scientific Reports |
| Volume | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 11 Jul 2014 |
Bibliographical note
date of Acceptance: 23/06/2014This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11331009, 11135001, 11105025). Y.-C.L. was supported by AFOSR under Grant No. FA9550-10-1-0083.
Access to Document
- Effects of behavioral response and vaccination policy on epidemic spreading - an approach based on evolutionary-game dynamics
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/